An often overlooked piece of our November ballots is the retention of judges. Politicians’ stances on issues and job performance are very public. Judges are cloistered away in courtrooms and should be non-partisan, at least in theory. So how is the voting public to decide whether to retain a particular judge? We hope they have qualities such as integrity, legal ability, and impartiality as they function in our courtrooms, but if we don’t know them personally, we need a source for that information in order to make responsible and informed decisions.
Happily, we can go to the Illinois State Bar Association’s website at www.isba.org to see how judges are rated by those who work directly with them. Ratings are based on background evaluations, personal interviews, and polls of colleagues. There are percentage ratings in the categories of: Integrity; impartiality; legal ability; temperament; courtroom management; health; sensitivity; and “meets requirements for office.” For those seeking retention on the Illinois Appellate or Supreme Court, there are further details about their backgrounds. Judges are then “Recommended” or “Not Recommended” by those who work with them and see them in action each day. It gives us a window into how qualified they are for the work they do.
Being rated by many mitigates the influence of one or two who might give a bad rating because they simply don’t like a particular colleague. You can even see how many individuals turned in surveys about each judge.
New surveys and interviews are done each election cycle, so judges who are poorly rated can step up their games and earn recommended status in the next cycle. For example, I noticed that judge Donald Tegeler was not recommended in 2014, but is recommended this year with all of his ratings between 85.52% and 97.74%.
Check multiple sources when researching your ballot, including ballotpedia.org, local newspaper articles, and each candidate’s website to see what they say about themselves.
I noticed that judge Noverini had switched parties, according to the Daily Herald. In spite of a couple ratings in the 70s amongst his 80s and 90s, he was still recommended. Most judges earned their recommendations with very high numbers.
There was only one judicial candidate in Kane County who was not recommended: Brittany Pedersen. She rated only 50% under “meets requirements for office,” which stood in sharp contrast with her opponent’s 97.87%. Her 59.55% for “legal ability” and 58.82% for “integrity” were equally troubling. Her 70% rating for impartiality was less jarring, but far below ratings for other judges, as was her 71.95% for temperament. I noticed there were only 94 survey responses for her, when other judges had between 150 and 250. I’m not sure how to account for that. Were respondents embracing the old adage that if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all? Given the numbers, I could not in good conscience vote for her.
It is vital to our system of government that we not only vote, but always make informed choices. Please be sure to research your ballot. Sample ballots can be found at ballotpedia.org or your county’s website (dupageco.org or kanecountyclerk.org).
My grandmother remembered a time when women did not have the right to vote, so I take the votes I cast extraordinarily seriously. I hope you will, too.